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E 756 

S88 

!, ., i Letter of Bellamy Storer 

Copy * 

TO the President and the 

Members of his Cabinet, 

November, 1906. 






Gltt 
Anthor 



To THE President and 

THE Members of His Cabinet: 

On March 20, 1906, I received by cable a telegram -« 
from the State Department, saying that I was removed 
from my office as Ambassador of the United States to 
Austria-Hungary. This telegram was received by me 
while ill in Egypt, on leave of absence, granted by the 
State Department, and it disclosed no reasons for the 
action taken. When I could conveniently address the 
Department, I wrote to ask for what reason I had been 
removed, and I received a reply, v^a-itten by the x\ssistant 
Secretary of State, by direction, as he stated, of the Presi- 
dent, to the effect that I was removed because I had failed 
to answer two letters and a telegram sent to me by the 
President. 

My removal in so summary a manner has suddenly 
dismissed me from an office which I had been given rea- 
son to believe I had filled to the satisfaction both of my 
own government and of that to which I was accredited, 
and, being accompanied by no public explanation, it has 
exposed me to suspicions and injurious conjectures, such 
as must naturally arise when a man in public office is 
abruptly dismissed by his government with what is obvi- 
ously intended to be discredit. 

In this situation I think it right to make a full statement 
which will enable impartial persons to pass a candid judg- 
ment on my official conduct, and this statement I submit 
to the President and the members of his Cabinet. 

It would be plainly impossible for me to discuss the 
charge that I have left unanswered letters which I should 
have answered, without going into the contents of the 



letters referred to so far as to explain my action, and 
this will involve some history of matters which preceded 
those letters and without which they cannot be under- 
stood. Those matters may seem to be largely private and 
personal to me and to the President, and I, on my part, 
have certainly so regarded them, and I am reluctant, for 
that reason, to go into them even now. But it will appear 
that personal and official matters have been inextricably 
confused (though not by me) and I certainly cannot be 
expected to refrain now from discussing anything on the 
ground that it is private and personal, if this very thing 
has been treated as official by the government in passing 
upon my conduct in office. I must insist, therefore, that 
it is not I who am responsible for a situation in which 
some narrative of personal matters, distasteful as it is, is 
now forced upon me. I certainly shall not go into those 
things further than seems necessary. I may premise that 
both Mrs. Storer and I were on terms of close, and, as we 
believed, affectionate personal intimacy with Mr. Roose- 
velt, and for more than ten j-ears have been in the habit 
of exchanging with him frequently letters written on both 
sides with the greatest unreserve on both private and 
public matters. Without this explanation the situation 
cannot be understood. I do not intend, however, to use 
Mr. Roosevelt's letters, which are numerous, except so 
far as they bear upon the subject which I am now forced 
to discuss, though they are open to the fullest inspection if 
the President so desires. 

In 1897 I was appointed by President McKinley to be 
Minister to Belgium, and in April, 1899, to be Minister to 
Spain. Perhaps I may be allowed to add, as bearing on 



the treatment that I was entitled to expect at subsequent 
stages of my diploiiiatic service, that my work in Madrid, 
coming as it did at the end of our war with Spain, and in- 
cluding the negotiation of a new treaty, was arduous and 
responsible, and was so performed as to draw out emphatic 
commendation from President McKinley and Mr. Hay.* 

The letters which I am charged with improperly leaving 
unanswered referred to acts alleged to have been done by 
me, or rather by my wife, in connection with the Roman 
Catholic Church, of which we are both members. Before 
discussing those letters in detail I will mention matters in 
the same connection which preceded and led up to the 
letters. 

After the close of the Spanish war our government 
found itself brought into new relations with Rome by rea- 
son of its possession of the Philippine Islands with their 
large Roman Catholic population, and especially on ac- 
count of the negotiations which were to be undertaken 
with the Vatican respecting the Friar's lands, and the ad- 
ministration acquired a new and definite interest in the 
selection by the Vatican of men who should hold influ- 
ential positions in the Church, all of which was brought to 
my notice by President McKinley and members of his 
Cabinet. Long before my appointment to Brussels Arch- 

* I venture to quote in this connection from a letter written to me by 

Secretary Hay on December 26, 1901, referring to my work at Madrid as 

follows : — 

" Of course it would be needless for me to say anything in regard 
to the very high appreciation I have of your ability and work. I 
can think of no one who could adequately replace 3'ou, and of 
course it would be impertinent in the case of such close friends as 
yourself and the President for me to tell 3'ou how highly he values 
you. . . . Very sincereh yours, 

John Hay.'' 



bishop Ireland had been a friend of mine and also of Mr. 
Roosevelt's, who often expressed to me his great admira- 
tion for him and his sympathy with the Archbishop's 
efforts to act in his ecclesiastical office so as to meet the 
highest demands of American citizenship. The possibility 
that the Archbishop might be made a Cardinal greatly 
interested me, and his appointment seemed to me to prom- 
ise great benefit, both to the Church and to our country at 
home and especially in the Philippines, by putting the pur- 
poses and policy of the Church openly on the high plane 
of American patriotism which the Archbishop publicly 
and definitely advocated. Mr. Roosevelt held the same 
opinion and strongly desired the appointment, as his cor- 
respondence abundantly shows, though, of course, from the 
position of a Protestant. In March, 1899, I wrote and 
cabled to Mr. Roosevelt, then Governor of New York, 
about promoting the appointment of the Archbishop by 
such means as would make known at Rome the high 
opinion held of him in America, and Mr. Roosevelt ex- 
erted himself to that end, ^nd applied to President Mc- 
Kinley to use his influence also. On March 23, 1899, 
Mr. Roosevelt wrote to me a letter from which I quote as 
follows : — 

"Executive Chamber, 

Albany, March 23, 1899. 

My dear Bellamy I have yours of the nth inst. 
Immediately on receipt of your second cable I wrote 
the President and I have also submitted to him your 
cables. I absolutely agree with you as to Archbishop 
Ireland. You know the truth about this so-called 
recantation of his about Americanism much better 
than I do. It seems to me that, from ever}?^ stand- 



point of sound public policy it will be a fortunate ' 
thing if we can have him made a cardinal, especially 
in view of what must occur in the Philippines. Re- 
member you have to largely guide me in matters of 
this kind, and write me always and fully. . . . 

Always 3'ours 

Theodore Roosevelt " 

On March 17, 1899, Mrs. Storer wrote to Mr. Roose- * 
velt asking him to send a telegram which could be used to 
promote the Archbishop's appointment, and to this he re- 
plied on March 27, 1899, in a letter which I give in full : 

" Executive Chamber 

Albany, March 27, 1899. 

My dear Mrs. Storer, I have your letter of the 
17th inst. The only reason I do not send you that 
cable is that I do not see quite where it would end if 
I began to interfere directly in the election of a car- 
dinal. 

If I make a request or express desire in such form 
as to make them seem like requests, I inevitably put 
myself under certain obligations and I do not quite 
know what these obligations are. I have written to 
the President stating my belief that it would be a most 
fortunate thing for this Country — and, I believe, an 
especially fortunate thing for the Catholics of this 
Country — if Archbishop Ireland could be made a 
cardinal. 

I feel this precisely because of what may be done 
in the Philippines and in other tropic c olonies . I am 
strongly of the op-inion that the upliftmg of the people 
in these tropic islands must come chiefly throughmak- 
ing them better Catholics and better citizens ; and, that 
on the one hand we shall have to guard against the 
reactionary Catholics who would oppose the correc- 
tion of abuses in the ecclesiastical arrangements of the 



Islands, — and, on the other hand, guard against pro- 
testanl fanaticism whicli will give trouble anyhow, and 
which may be fanned into a dangerous flame if the 
above-mentioned Catholic reactionaries are put into 
control. On ever}- account, I should feel that the 
election of Archbishop Ireland to the Cardinalate would 
be a most fortunate thing for us in the United States — 
Catholics and non-Catholics alike. 

While I would not like to have this letter published, 
you are most welcome to show it to anyone you see 
fit. 

With many regards to Bellamy, 
Always yours 

Theodore Roosevelt." 

A second letter of the same tenor was written by Mr. 
Roosevelt to Mrs. Storer on April 30, 1900, which I also 
give in full : 

" Executive Chamber 

Albany, April 30, 1900. 
Mrs. Bellamy Storer, 
U.S. Legation, 

Madrid, Spain. 

My dear Mrs. Storer, I have just received your 
letter. I need not say what a pleasure it would be for 
me to do anything I can for Archbishop Ireland. You 
know how high a regard I have always felt for him ; 
he represents the type of Catholicism which, in my 
opinion, must prevail in the United States if the Cath- 
olic Church is to attain its full measure of power and 
usefulness with our people and under our form of gov- 
ernment. 

I absolutely agree with what Judge Taft says in his 

• letter to vou of March 20th, in relation to that part of 

this problem which affects the Philippines. But the 

problem as a whole affects the United States as a 

whole ; a reactionary or in any way anti-American 



spirit in ecclesiastical affairs would in America, in the 
long run, result in disaster just as certainly as a sim- 
ilar course in political affairs. I may add that the 
bigoted opponents of Catholicism are those who are 
most anxious to see the triumph within the ranks of 
Catholicism of this reactionary spirit, and the throw- 
incr out of men who have shown a broad liberalism 
and Americanism in policy. 

Of course, I feel that I am not justified in interfermg 
in any way, directly or indirectly, with matters at the 
Vatican, but it is only fair, in response to your letter, 
that I should write you fully and frankly of my great 
appreciation of Archbishop Ireland, and of my firm 
conviction that the real future of the Catholic Church 
in America rests with those who, in the main, work 
along his lines. You may be interested to know^ of 
the Targe percentage of Catholics, without exception 
men standing as high in capacity as in integrity, 
whom I have placed upon the various importantcom- 
missions in this State. 

So much for the part of my letter that is m direct 
answer to the main part of yours ; I do not know 
whether it will be of any assistance or not, but I hope 
so. I need not tell you that it is a pleasure to write it, 
or to do anything else that you desire me to do, if in 
mv power. 

You must have a very hard time at Madrid and 1 
earnestly hope that the signal devotion to the good of 
the Country which you and Bellamy have shown, will 
result in its proper reward, and in your being trans- 
ferred in the not distant future to Rome, or better still, 

to Paris. 

Here I am occupied in trying not to be made vice- 
presidential candidate. I prefer to try for the Gov- 
ernorship again ; whether I will be beaten or not I 
cannot tell. I suppose I should certainly be beaten 
if it were not a presidential year ; but this year there 
is a good chance of carrying the Governorship too ; 
whether it is more than an even chance 1 should be 
afraid to say. 



Edith had a lovely three weeks' trip to Cuba. It 
did her good to be away from the children, the house 
and myself, and she came back looking just like a 
girl. Young Mclllhenny, the Louisiana planter who 
was a lieutenant in my regiment, went with her, and 
also her sister. Wood, of course, did everything he 
could for them, sent them around on transports and 
had them stay at the palace with him. In Santiago 
they went over all our line of march as well as the 
battlefield — or skirmish ground, whichever you 
choose to call it. The children are all in fine spirits. 

With love to Bellamj'^, 

Always faithfully yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt." 

The two foregoing letters from Mr. Roosevelt were in- 
tended, as appears on their face, to be used in promoting 
the appointment, and they were so used by me and Mrs. 
Storer, and the portions referring to that subject were 
quoted to other persons in our discretion, though not pub- 
lished. I have given them here because they are the only 
letters from Mr. Roosevelt which I or Mrs. Storer ever so 
used, and have given them in full because it has been 
charged by the President that " isolated sentences " of his 
letters have been used to misrepresent him. No letters on 
that subject have been written to either of us by Mr. Roose- 
velt while President. 

President McKinley heartily furthered the efforts made 
by Mr. Roosevelt, myself, and others to promote the 
appointment of Archbishop Ireland, and in the spring of 
1899 he commissioned Bishop O'Gorman to say to the 
Pope that "that appointment would be considered a per- 
sonal favor to him, the President, as well as an honor to 
the country," and this the Bishop did, speaking in the Presi- 



dent's name in a personal audience vvitli the Pope. Mv 
particular authority for this statement of a matter not 
known to me personally is a letter written to me by Bishop 
O'Gorman from Paris on June 19, 1899, from which I 
have quoted literally the writer's language. 

Besides the letter from Judge Taft which the President -- 
referred to, Mrs. Storer received many other letters from 
the former concernincr the situation of Church affairs in the 
Philippines. I mention this only to show, what is the fact, ^ 
that Mrs. Storer and I were regarded by members of the 
government as available for use in Church matters, and ' 
that we were so used. There can be, I think, no impro- 
priety in my making an extract from one of Judge Taft's 
letters, to show that I am justified in saying that Arch- 
bishop Ireland's appointment to the office of Cardinal was 
definitely desired by the government : 

"Manila, P.I. May 19, '01. 

My dear Mrs. Storer — I have your three letters, 
one of March 21st, another of March 29th and the 
third of April 2nd, all of which I have read with great 
interest. 

I share with you your profound disappointment that- \ 
Archbishop Ireland was not appointed Cardinal. The / 
position which Archbishop Ireland occupies in the 
United States is u nique. I think he has more influ- 
ence with the people, both of his own church and of \ 
other churches and the people at large than any other 1 
prelate that I have ever known of in the United States. I 
He is regarded as truly catholic, in the usual sense of 
that word, and it is thought that he has solved the 
difficulty which sometimes presents itself to the non- 
catholic mind, of complete loyalty both to the Church 
and to the country. The high esteem in which he is 
held by President McKinley and by all the prominent 



men in the Government cannot be exaggerated. I 
am sure that nothing would so tend to ameliorate the 
unjustifiable but still existent prejudice against the 
Catholic Church in some quarters of our country as 
the recognition by the Vatican of the merits of Arch- 
bishop Ireland by giving him a Cardinalate. I can- 
not say to you how regretful I have often been that 
_ we did not have Archbishop Ireland in these Islands 
to assist in the work of pacification. He would have 
had an opportunity which he would have eagerly 
seized to convince the people here that we were not 
an anti-catholic government determined to thwart the 
purposes of the Church but that we were simply a 
government willing to give every church an opportu- 
nity to bring to the people the comforts of religion 
and to elevate their religious and moral life. . . . 

Sincerely yours 

Wm. H. Taft." 

In the autumn of 1900 I had a private audience with 
Pope Leo XIII, and took that occasion, speaking, of 
course, wholly as a private citizen, to put before him the 
purposes and policy of our government in the Philippines; 
and I gave to the public press an interview in which I 
reported the very satisfactory position which the Pope took 
in the matter. This action of mine was expressly ap- 
proved by President McKinley, who, on October 20, 1900, 
expressed to Archbishop Ireland his great gratification that 
I had seen the Pope and published the interview, all of 
which Archbishop Ireland communicated to me in letters 
written immediately after his conversation with the Pres- 
ident. 

Mr. Roosevelt, shortly after his election to the Vice- 
Presidency, showed apprehension lest he should be thought 
by the Protestant public to be in relations with the 



10 



Roman Catholic Church, and a fear that he might be 
compromised by the letters above referred to which he 
had written before his election, expressing his friendship 
for Archbishop Ireland. He wrote two letters to Mrs. 
Storer, which I give in full : 

"Executive Chamber. 

Albany, Nov. 23rd, 1900. 

Mrs. Bellamy Storer, 

Madrid, Spain, 

My dear Mrs. Storer, It was awfully good to hear 
from you even in the shape of what you call a ' cry.' 
Two members of the administration spoke to me about 
extracts of my letters to you, having been shown as 
coming from you. They did not speak to me until 
after the campaign began, telling me they did not 
think it was any of their business, but when the cam- 
paign began they were afraid that something might 
be put in the papers which could be twisted to the 
disadvantage of the party. Exactly what they said 
the extracts were I have forgotten, but they had im- 
pressed them as being subject to misconstruction. 

I understand absolutely, oh warmest of friends 
and staunchest of supporters ! what your motives are : 
you want to do good to the American commonwealth 
and to elevate your Church, You are quite right in 
both objects ; but the President can no more try to 
get a certain Archbishop made a cardinal, because it 
would be a good thing from tlie standpoint of the body 
politic here, than he can try to get a certain Metho- 
dist minister made a Bishop from similar reasons. 
For instance there are any number of Methodist cler- 
gymen who are political prohibitionists and support 
the third party and denounce the President because 
he will not encourage drunkenness in the army by 
putting down the canteen. It is a bad thing to have 
any clergymen of this fool type promoted ; but it 



II 



would be a worse thing for the President to try to in- 
terfere with his promotion. 

The particular Dutch Reformed individual who is 
writing to you seems to have accumulated an enor- 
mous quantity of Catholic intimacy. I do not think 
it is exactly support ; it is rather a desire to be sup- 
ported. On every question, such as the Church prop- 
erty in the Philippines, the marriage law in Cuba, 
Catholic representation on charitable bodies and Cath- 
olic chaplains in the army and navy, I have appeals 
from numerous Catholics. They are almost always 
appeals which I feel to be just and I help them out to 
the best of my ability. Among my telegrams of con- 
gratulations, by the way, were telegrams from the 
Archbishops of Havana and Manila as well as from 
Archbishop Ireland ; also a long letter from Arch- 
bishop Corrigan ! ! ! 

I only wash you could go to Paris. Bellamy would 
be a corking Ambassador ; but alas, I am out of poli- 
tics now ; I am as useless as a fifth wheel as has 
ever been constitutionally provided for in any govern- 
ment. 

With love to Bellamy, 

Ever yours, 

Theodore Roosevei.t." 

"Oyster Bay, Dec. 27, 1900. 

Mrs. Bellamy Storer, 

U.S. Legation, 

Madrid, Spain. 

My dear Mrs. Storer, It was so very nice to hear 
from you. In the first place, about my letter con- 
cerning Archbishop Ireland. — I now see what the 
quotation was which caused such anxiety among my 
political friends during the last campaign ; it was the 
allusion to Protestant fanaticism. [See letter of March 
27, 1899, copied above.] Taken by itself and out of 
the context that absolutely true statement would have 



12 



been used to the utmost damage both to McKinley 
and to me. 

My desire is so great to help you whenever you 
ask it that I did what I ought not to have done in writ- 
ing that letter. I mean by ' what I ought not to have 
done,' having a just and proper regard for tlie effect 
of what I say (should it by any chance get out) upon 
the political fortunes of those associated with me — 
for a letter such as this, which contains what every 
thoughtful and fair minded man will agree with, can, 
nevertheless, in a campaign, be so twisted as to be a 
detriment to the cause I represent. This occurred 
through more than one of my writings this year, and 
I am very anxious that there should be no repetition. 
Can you not reclaim any copy of my letter, if any has 
been sent anywhere? 

Ever yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt." 

The two foregoing letters do not suggest any misuse of 
letters by Mrs. Storer, and certainly there had never been 
any use contrar}' to Mr. Roosevelt's own wish. They 
appear to show onl}' the writer's fear of public knowledge 
of what he had written. The suggestion that a President 
could not try to get an Archbishop made Cardinal must be 
read in the light of what Mr. Roosevelt had himself tried 
to get President McKinley to do privately. That no offi- 
cial request or effort in that direction could properly come 
from the President is, and was, plain, and certainly neither 
I nor my wife has ever represented such a thing to any 
one, or undertaken to transmit Mr. Roosevelt's official 
influence. Indeed, I have never quoted anything said or 
done by Mr. Roosevelt while Vice-President or President 
(excepting on one occasion referred to later when I acted 
in Rome by his express request), but we have confined 



13 



ourselves to using the two letters written in 1899 referred 
to above as he intended them to be used, and have done 
this in such way that no error as to their date could have 
arisen nor any embarrassment have resulted to him as 
Vice-President or President by reason of any mistake 
about the time when they were written. 

After Mr. Roosevelt had succeeded to the Presidency he 
returned to the subject of publicity and the possibility of 
there being letters of his in the possession of other persons, 
and wrote a letter from which I extract so much as refers 
to this : 

" White House. 

Personal. Washington, January 16, 1902. 

Dear Bellamy, . . . Will you ask Maria again if 
there is any letter of mine to her, or a copy of any 
letter which, so far as she is aware, is in the hands of 
any one else? It is stated with the utmost insistence 
that Rampolla has one. I care very little as far as I 
am personally concerned, for what I write I stand by, 
but it is obviously not wise on general principles that 
any letter of mine should be in the hands of any one 
to whom it was not addressed, at this time. 

With love to both of you. 

Faithfully yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 
Hon. Bellamy Storer, 

Minister of the United States, 

Madrid, Spain." 

In fact Cardinal Rampolla did have in his possession 
copies of the two letters given above, written by Mr. 
Roosevelt in 1899 and 1900, when he was Governor of 
New York, or of parts of them. Mrs. Storer wrote at 

H 



once to Cardinal Rampolla, who ordered the letters to he 
returned to her. She informed President Roosevelt that 
she had got them, and received from him the following 
letter : — 

" White House 

Washington, February 17, 1902 

My dear Maria, That is all right. You need not 
bring the letters. All I want you to do is to keep them 
yourself. Evidently some people at Rome have been 
talking. A most resolute effort has been made to mix 
up facts and try to show that, as president, I have been 
endeavoring to interfere with ecclesiastical matters. 

I am looking forward to seeing you and Bellamy. 

Sincerely yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 
Mrs. Bellamy Storer, 

Hotel d'Angleterre, 
Biarritz, France." 

I have gone over these matters of a rather early date in 
order t(^ make clear what had been the position of Mrs. 
Storer and myself in matters affecting the relations between 
the Church and the countr}', and how far our actions in 
these matters had been known to President McKinley and 
to Mr. Roosevelt before he became President, and had 
been not only permitted, but encouraged and promoted, by 
them, and by others in high office in the administration. 
This brings the situation down to occurrences in the autumn 
of 1903, to which I am now about to call attention. 

In October, 1902, I was appointed by President Roosevelt 
Ambassador to Austria-Hungary. In the summer and 
autumn of 1903 I visited the United States on leave of 



15 



I absence, and with Mrs. Storer was a guest of the Presi- 
/ dent at Oyster Bay. During my visit there the relations 
I of the Catholic Church with America were discussed by 
President Roosevelt with me, and the President was warm 
in his praise of Archbishop Ireland, of whom he spoke in 
terms of enthusiastic friendship on account of his con- 
spicuous services as an American citizen, and, incident- 
ally, for his assistance as a supporter of the Republican 
party and the administration. On that occasion, Arch- 
bishop Ireland being the topic of conversation, the Presi- 
^ dent said to me that if I went to Rome he would like to 
I have me see the Pope, and say to him in person that the 

1 Archbishop was his friend, and that he would be pleased 
to hear that he had received the honor of promotion to the 
Cardinalate. 

I did not tell even Archbishop Ireland of the President's 
commission to me, not feeling at liberty to do so, but he im- 
mediately learned of it directly from the President himself, 
for shortly after the conversation the President told him 
what he had said. This we learned from the Archbishop, 
. who wrote at once to Mrs. Storer, in October and Novem- 
/ ber, 1903, that the President had told him that he had com- 
; missioned Mr. Storer to speak for him, viva voce, at the 
Vatican, and gave the substance of his interview with the 
President in these words : — 

"The President said to me, 'Mr. Storer has told 
you what I said to him about you, Archbishop?' 

"I replied, 'I do not remember' — 

" ' About his going to Rome ? ' 

"I said 'No.' 

" 'Well,' he said, 'I told him I would not write a 
letter to the Pope asking for honors for you but I said 

16 



that he could go to Rome and say, viva voce, to the 
Pope how much I wish you to be cardinal, and how 
grateful I personally would be to him for giving you 
that honor.'" 

This action of the President in informing Archbishop 
Ireland of my commission furnished me with an indepen- 
dent evidence of his wishes and of his willingness that 
they should be known to the persons concerned, though 
incidentally it confirmed what the President had more 
than once said to me, to the effect that he did not want to 
put his wishes in writing. So far as oral messages went, 
however, I was not the only person who had been used to 
deliver one, for, some weeks before, the President had 
asked Mgr. O'Connell to say the same thing to the Pope, 
and this Mgr. O'Connell had done in an interview with 
Pope Pius X on September 24, 1903, in the second month 
of his Pontificate, and had transmitted to the President, in 
reply, a message from Pope Pius X in this form, — "Pre- 
sent to the President my compliments, tell him of my 
esteem for himself personally and for the country which 
he governs, and say to him that his wishes in regard to 
Mgr. Ireland will most probably be fulfilled." 

I had nothing to do with this mission of Mgr. O'Con- 
nell's, but was informed of it and of its results before 
approaching the Pope on the errand given to me. 

A few weeks after my return to Europe I went to Rome, 
and on December 2, 1903, had an audience with Pope 
Pius X. I had already made a translation into French of 
a memorandum which I had taken of the President's oral 
message to the Pope in order that I might deliver it in- 
telligibly, as the Pope does not understand English. At 



17 



the interview I held that translation in my hand and read 
it to the Pope. I have preserved it, and it reads as 
follows : — 

" II m'a dit et m'a autorise de dire a Votre Saintete 
que I'Archeveque de St. Paul est son ami personnel, 
et qu'il possede toute sa confiance comme prelat et 
comme citoyen : qu'il desire vivement pour Mgr. Ire- 
land tons les honneurs de I'Eglise ; et qu'il verrait 
avec le plus grand plaisir et satisfaction I'elevation au 
Cardinalat de Mgr. Ireland." 

I said nothing which could enlarge the scope of this 
message or color its import. I simply delivered it and left 
it to carry its own proper weight. 

Immediately after this interview I wrote to Mr. Roose- 
velt a personal and confidential letter, giving a full account 
of what had occurred there, a verbatim statement in Eng- 
lish of what was said by me to the Pope, and an account 
of the Pope's reception of the message. 

I should say that I had carefully avoided making known 
to any one that I had received a commission from the 
President. The President had frequently insisted that 
any public knowledge that he was interested in Church 
matters would be injurious to him, and I had just had a 
definite reminder of his feeling in that respect by learning 
that Mgr. O'Connell's errand to the Pope had got into the 
newspapers and had called out from the President's Sec- 
retary a statement flatly denying that the President had 
authorized it. Unfortunately, the very thing that had 
happened on Mgr. O'Connell's visit now happened on 
mine, for a newspaper correspondent in Rome telegraphed 
to an American newspaper a report that I had seen the 



Pope, and gave an account of my audience, connecting it 
with Archbishop Ireland. How this happened I do not 
know. It was not in any manner throu<rh me. The report 
was even said to have been telegraphed originally from 
Washington to Rome and repeated from there to Wash- 
ington. I certainly had every intention to keep the matter 
secret, and every reason to desire, in the interest of suc- 
cess for my errand, that it should be secret. 

This newspaper report of my visit was brought to the 
attention of President Roosevelt, and evidently greatly 
irritated him. I received a letter from him dated Decem- 
ber 27, 1903, which I give in full, as it was subsequently re- 
ferred to by the President : 

"White House 

Personal. Washington. December 27, 1903. 

My dear Bellamy : The enclosed article is but 
one of several of the same kind which have appeared, 
and letters are beginning to come to both Hay and 
myself on the same subject. I need hardly point out' 
that but few things could be more embarrassing or 
more mischievous than to have had the opportunity 
given for such articles to appear. What has occurred 
shows clearly that it is hopeless for you to expect that 
people will appreciate the difference between what 
you, as an American Catholic, in your private capa- 
city, say, and what you, as an American Ambas- 
sador, say. I take it for granted that you supposed 
you were speaking merely in your private capacity to 
people who would not misunderstand you, and who 
would not repeat what you said. Your faith has 
evidently been misplaced. In view of what has 
occurred I must ask you, while you are in the United 
States service, to take no part either directly or in- 
directly in such a matter as tliis, and hereafter to 



19 



repeat to no man what I have said to 3'ou concerning 
the subject of the article. You have doubtless your- 
self seen, by what has occurred, that such action can 
have only mischievous results. 

I have the heartiest admiration for Archbishop 
Ireland. I should be delighted to see him made car- 
dinal, just as I was delighted to see Lawrence made 
the Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts ; just as I have 
been delighted at various Methodist friends of mine 
who have been made bishops. But as President, it is 
none of my business to interfere for or against the 
advancement of any man in any church ; and as it is 
impossible to differentiate what I say in my individual 
capacity from what I say as President — at least in 
the popular mind, and apparently also in the Roman 
mind — I must request you not to quote me in any 
way or shape hereafter. 

Have you written any one, excepting John Hay 
or myself, stating that the removal of Hurst was 
wrong? I do not believe you have, but the other 
day some one quoted you to this effect. I need 
hardly say that under no circumstances must you 
write to an outsider commenting upon a removal by 
my direction on Secretary Hay's recommendation, 
and on absolutely conclusive proof of misconduct and 
unfitness. 

With love to Maria, believe me, 

Faithfully yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 

Hon. Bellamy Storer, 

United States Ambassador, 

Vienna, Austria." 

This letter from the President filled me with astonish- 
ment. Its tone was one of rebuke for speaking to the 
Pope on the subject, and yet I had spoken by the Presi- 
dent's express request. Then, too, my letter reporting the 



20 



interview was wholly ignored by the President, and he as- 
sumed the air of one who had just learned from the news- 
papers for the first time, and with pained surprise, anything 
about the affair. I replied as follows : — 

"American Embassy 

Vienna, io, January 1904. 

Dear Theodore, Yours of 27 December has just 
reached me. I am as sorry as you can be that any- 
thing I did or said is being used to attack you with. 
As I wrote you exactly what I did and said, you may 
judge whether I overstepped what belonged to me. 
As for the article you send — its contempt of common 
sense in making it appear that your representative at 
Rome had done something reprehensible, ought to 
rouse common sense into temper and reciprocal con- 
tempt. 

Do not shut your eyes to the danger which for 
five years I have been trying to head off from the 
Republican party and its candidates. I hope I am 
not the only one who is tired of my church possessing 
a hierarchy which is (so far as it knows politics) by a 
very large majority, in principle, opposed to us politi- 
cally. Althougli, when once 'Bryanism 'took posses- 
sion of the Democratic party, a very large proportion of 
my Church voted Republican, at another time this large 
fragment of influence and votes is quite likely to re- 
turn to its old political fold. The Republicans, for 
the first time, in 1884, began to make serious inroads 
on the solidity of Catholic votes for the Democratic 
party. That was on a moral issue of the personal 
character of a candidate ; you know a very large pro- 
portion of tliis gain went back to Mr. Cleveland in 
1892. In 1896 and 1900 we got perhaps more than 
half of the votes of members of my Church. Are we 
going to keep them? Are the Democrats going to 
give us again a moral issue? Do you suppose that 



21 



the influence of such powerful minds as Mesmer and 
McPhall will naturally tend toward Republicanism? 
Will the influence even of such good men as Gibbons, 
Ryan, Keane, and others of old Maryland extraction, 
be thrown this time for Republican success — should 
the issues be such as are made by only normal politi- 
cal differences? 

If any better, or even other, way, of balancing this 
doubt in our favor, than by straining every nerve to 
have the great Republican influence in my church 
recognized as standing of equal value in the eyes of 
the Spiritual authority of this Church (as the Demo- 
cracy has been able to make appear the contrary for 
thirty or forty years) can be shown me I am willing 
to follow it. Do you know any other influence we 
can rely on for this than Abp. Ireland's? If you can 
— tell me ; and then remember very carefully what 
you tell me and tally with this what I may do or say ; 
all the time trying not to compromise you. 

As for Hurst * — at the same time I wrote you 
direct I gave him a letter of introduction to Hanna, 
as to his father's old personal and political friend. 
In this I said just as I had told you, and as I repeated 
verbally to you, that if the charges against Hurst were 
made by Herdliska, they ought to be looked upon 
with the greatest suspicion — as the character and 
interested motives of the latter made to my mind a most 
unsavory mixture. Hurst swore to me that he had 
never been able to learn why he had been removed, 
but had reason to believe that Herdliska wanted his 
place. 

I introduced Hurst to Hanna as one asking only to 
find out why he was removed, and removed only by 

* I may explain that Mr. Hurst, son of the well-known Methodist 
Bishop, had been Consul-General at Vienna, and was summarily dis- 
charged without explanation or assignment of cause, and his place given 
to another man. He appealed to me to interest myself in his defence, and 
I wrote to the President and Senator Hanna about him. Subsequently.. 
he Avas appointed Consul at La Guayra, Venezuela. 



22 



telegram with, as he stated, a refusal to give him any 
reason. That was in January 1903, and since that 
time, except to yourself, I have never even spoken of 
the matter, and my letter to you and to Hanna of a 
year ago are the only letters I ever have written. 

I repeat again — if the Department acted for rea- 
sons outside Herdliska, I have had, and now have, 
nothing to say. If it was only on Herdliska's urgency, 
the Department has been misled by untrustworthy in- 
formation just as much as an}^ Dreyfus Court Martial 
was misled by forged evidence. 

I haven't the slightest personal interest in Hurst — 
and the matter has ceased to be my business from the 
time I wrote in January 1903, and you answered that 
the matter was final. 

Faithfully yours, 

Bellamy Storer." 

Shortly after writing this I received another letter from 
the President, written before mine to him could have been 
received, on December 30, 1903, three days after the first 
and still more astonishing. I quote the portions referring 
to this matter : 

"Let me repeat to you that in reference to matters 
affecting the Catholic Church events have absolutely 
shown that while you are Ambassador you must keep 
absolutely clear of any deed or word in Rome or else- 
where which would seem to differentiate your position 
from that of other Ambassadors. The mere fact of a 
report in the newspapers about your calling at the 
Vatican had a very unfortunate effect. I daresay you 
did not call. You may merely have seen some car- 
dinal privately, but the unpleasant talk over the af- 
fair emphasizes the need of extreme circumspection 
while you are in your present position. While I am 
President and you are Ambassador neither of us in 
his public relation is to act as Catholic or Protestant, 



23 



Jew or Gentile and we have to be careful not merely 
to do what is right but so to carry ourselves as to show 
that we are doing what is right. I shall ask you not 
to quote me to any person in any shape or way in con- 
nection with any affair of the Catholic Church and 
yourself not to take action of any kind which will 
give ground for the belief that you as an American 
Ambassador are striving to interfere in the affairs of 
the church." 



This letter, with its virtual assertion that my visit to the 
Vatican was not only unauthorized, but was so contrary to 
what could have been expected that the President hardly 
then believed that it had occurred, was unintelligible ex- 
cept on the theory that he had resolved to repudiate all 
authority for my action, and to appear ignorant of it, and 
was now writing a letter which would be serviceable if 
needed later as evidence to support that position. In fact, 
this was the use to which the letter was afterwards actually 
put by him in quoting it to persons not informed of the 
facts, as will appear later. I felt that the only thing for 
me to do in this situation was to tender my resignation at 
once, and that I immediately did, accompanying it by a 
letter to the President of which I regret to say that I can 
find no copy. To this I received the following reply : — 

"White House 

Washington January 29, 1904. 

Dear Bellamy : — I have your letter. It is abso- 
lutely all right; we will treat the incident as closed. 
Nothing could persuade me to accept your resigna- 
tion, old fellow, and I am sure John Hay feels as I 
do. When I see you I shall explain, as I do not like 



24 



to do on paper, both how full had been the steps taken 
by Hay in investigating the matter, and the use that 
was made against me of your letter. I shall give 
Hay your note. 

Faithfully yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt." 

With this the incident closed. I had followed exactly 
the President's request in seeing Pope Pius X. I had 
reported to him in detail my interview ; I had put it 
squarely to him that I had done nothing beyond what he 
had asked me to do, and he had thereupon left the subject, 
not disavowing his authority nor dissenting from my state- 
ment. I accordingly accepted as sincere the cordial ex- 
pressions with which he refused to accept my resignation, 
as it was apparent that his irritation had been caused, not 
by my acts, but by the publicity which had unfortunately 
been given to things which he wished to have done, but 
wished to be kept secret. The President never alluded to 
any phase of this matter again until two years later, when, 
in pressing for my resignation, he quoted to my wife these 
letters of December, 1903, as evidence that he had then 
been displeased by my conduct. 

During the two years from January, 1904, to December, 
1905, matters of the Catholic Church were not brought 
into our correspondence. I continued to be on the same 
terms of close intimacy with the President as before, and 
his letters and interviews showed the same apparent friend- 
ship and confidence. His attitude toward Archbishop • 
Ireland and the possible appointment of the Archbishop to 
the office of Cardinal evidently remained unchanged, for 
shortly after writing to me his letter of December 30, 



25 



1903, given above, he talked with the Archbishop about the 
newspaper article, inquired how it could have got into 
print, referred to the letter just written to Mr. Storer, ex- 
pressed his confidence in Mr. Storer, and his hope that the 
outcome of Mr. Storer's mission would be what all desired, 
and repeated his expression of friendship for the Arch- 
bishop, referring to his message sent through me to the 
Pope with no sign of change of feeling, though regretting 
the publicity which had followed. My authority for this 
statement is a letter written to me by Archbishop Ireland at 
the time (February 2, 1904). I may recall, without impro- 
priety, the facts that during 1904 the Presidential cam- 
paign was in progress, and that Archbishop Ireland was a 
Republican deservedl}"- having great influence over the 
immense body of Roman Catholic voters in the West, so 
that cordial relations with him, and a readiness to be of 
assistance in his expected promotion to still higher influ- 
ence, were very natural on the President's part, aside from 
the personal friendliness which, as the President always 
declared, he felt for the Archbishop. 

In the summer of 1904 I was in the United States on 
leave of absence from my post, and in October I was, with 
my wife, a guest at the White House. During that visit 
the President spoke to me with great warmth of Arch- 
bishop Ireland, desiring his elevation to the Cardinal's 
office, and always without suggestion of any dissatisfac- 
tion with what had been previously done by me toward 
that end. On the evening of October 20 he made to my 
wife remarks on the subject which were so significant that 
she immediately made a memorandum of them. That 
memorandum I have found, and it is as follows : — 



26 



"White House 

October 20th, 1904. 

The President told me he had said to Cardinal 
Satolli that he wondered if the Vatican appreciated 
the influence and position of Archbisliop Ireland in 
the United States. He said to Cardinal Satolli, 'I 
consult Archbishop Ireland and lean upon him for sup- 
port in every issue that involves the Catholic Church 
in America and in every question which concerns the 
church in the Philippines.' The President said that 
Cardinal Satolli smiled blandly and said not a word, so 
that it seemed uncertain if he had clearly understood. 

The President inquired however, a few days later 
of Monsignor O'Connell and found that Satolli had 
reported verbatim to him the conversation and had 
written a letter about it to the Vatican. 

The President said : ' I do most sincerely hope that 
Archbishop Ireland may be made a Cardinal at the 
next Consistory. Nothing could help me more in 
matters connected with the church here and in the 
Philippines. I have done everything and said every- 
thing which it is possible for me to say and do in the 
matter. I certainly said enough to Cardinal Satolli 
(without mentioning the Cardinal's hat, which of 
course I could not do) to show my wishes and desires 
should the Pope see fit to gratify them.'" 

I am informed that Cardinal Satolli at once reported to 
the Pope the President's conversation with him, as the 
President evidently intended him to do. 

Immediately after the election of November, 1904, I 
wrote to the President making formal tender of my resig- 
nation, as is usually done by Ambassadors and Ministers 
on the eve of a change in administration, in order that the 
new President may be free to make a new appointment 
if he wishes. To this I received the following reply : — 

27 



"White House. 
Washington, January 9, 1905. 

Dear Bellamy, I accept 3'our resignation and shall 
reappoint you as Ambassador to Vienna — unless, on 
talking it over with John Hay, it seems best simply 
not to accept the resignation. 

Whether I can later transfer you elsewhere or not 
I do not know. If I am not able to, it may be that I 
shall want after, say, three years to put in Charles S. 
Francis, ex-Minister to Greece — son of Francis who 
was Minister to Vienna for a year. He was a good 
man in the diplomatic service. He has a great senti- 
mental desire to succeed his father in Austria and did 
substantial work in this last campaign. I may not 
want to do this, but it is possible that I should like to. 

With best wishes. 

Faithfully yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt." 

I never received any other answer than this to my letter 
of resignation, which remained unacted on, and I con- 
tinued as Ambassador without reappointment. At any 
time thereafter my letter could have been acted on, and 
my place vacated, by a simple communication to me 
accepting the resignation, for nothing more was needed 
from me to put my place at the immediate disposal of the 
government. 

Nothing was done at Rome respecting the appointment 
of any American to the office of Cardinal, notwithstanding 
earlier intimations that Archbishop Ireland was to be ap- 
pointed, and toward the end of 1905 it was reported in 
Rome that this was because the President had caused it to 
be known there that he now favored the appointment of 

28 



Archbishop Farley. This rumor was hardly credible, but, 
as it was currently circulated and believed in Rome, it 
seemed to call for notice. Accordingly, Mrs. Storer wrote 
to the President on November 20, 1905, the following let- 
ter, calling his attention to the report : — 

"American Embassy 

Vienna. November 20, 1905. 

Dear Theodore, — I want to write to you in con- 
fidence of something which I have heard from Rome. 
Princess Alexandrine Windisch Graetz has told me. 

She knew the Pope very well in Venice when he 
was Patriarch and has seen him often since at the 
Vatican. About eighteen months ago the Pope told 
her that he intended to appoint Archbishop Ireland 
Cardinal. He said: ^ Ho stiidiato la causa: sdra 
fatto^ — ('I have studied the question. It shall be 
done'). The Pope went on to say that there would 
be no consistory that year and perhaps not before the 
end of 1905 but that Archbishop Ireland's appoint- 
ment was a certainty because the Pope believed it 
would please the American non-Catholics and the 
American President. 

Everything seemed settled, when Cardinal Merry 
del Val (who is personally not friendly to Archbishop 
Ireland because of the Archbishop's patriotism during 
our war with Spain) announced that 'The President 
of tlie United States has asked for the elevation of 
two Archbishops therefore he cannot care very much 
about either.' 

It is said that a Mr. Philbin went to Rome with 
a request from you that Archbishop Farley should be 
raised to the Cardinalate. 

This has wiped out Archbishop Ireland without 
promoting the Archbishop of New York. The Dio- 
cese of New York represents (as it did in the life- 
time of Archbishop Corrigan) the foreign and re- 



29 



actionary spirit which is hurtful to our country and 
hostile to our schools and institutions. I cannot be- 
lieve that you have asked for the recognition of this 
element, and that Archbishop Ireland's great work 
should reap no harvest of future influence would 
be a misfortune to the American Republic. If this 
assertion be not true I beg of you to set it right. I 
could take a cable from you to Rome myself and put 
it directly into the Pope's hand without Cardinal Merry 
del Val's knowledge or interference. You can trust 
me really. Please do not be angry with me for writ- 
ing to you about this. You know that you can trust 
me. We are of one mind although of different 
creeds. 

Always affectionately yours, 

Maria Longworth Storer." 



A few days later Mrs. Storer wrote to Judge Taft a 
confidential letter of the same import as the above, of 
which, however, I have no copy. In that letter were en- 
closed copies of three letters which Mrs. Storer had re- 
ceived, one from the Princess Alexandrine Windisch- 
Graetz, one from Cardinal Merry del Val, and one from 
Archbishop Keane. As, later, these enclosures were 
made the subject of comment by the President, I attach 
copies of the first two. (See Nos. i and 2 appended.) I 
have no copy of Archbishop Keane's letter. 

It appears that the letter of Mrs. Storer to Judge Taft 
was shown not only to the President but to Mr. Root, who 
had then become Secretary of State. Mr. Root, I may 
point out, was probably ignorant of what had been pre- 
viously done by me and others in church matters during 
the secret ar3^ship of his predecessor, Mr. Hay. 

While Mrs. Storer's letter was on its way she received a 



30 



letter from the President which, though it has no imme- 
diate bearing upon the matters now under discussion, I 
will quote as showing that the President could then 
have been feeling no dissatisfaction with my official con- 
duct, but was proposing to give me fresh marks of his 
approval : 

"The White House 

Personal Washington November 24, 1905. 

Dear Maria, All right ; in the event of the mar- 
riage of the King of Spain, Bellamy shall be made 
Special Ambassador, I shall see that the State De- 
partment gives nothing to ... if he comes over here. 

With love to Bellamy 

Ever yours 

Theodore Roosevelt." 

The response to Mrs. Storer's letter came from the Pres- 
ident in the form of two letters to which I ask careful 
attention, as they became the basis of the President's action 
in removing me from my post. They came under one and 
the same envelope marked "strictly personal." The first 
of these was addressed to me, and was as follows : — 

"White House 

Washington, December 11, 1905. 

My dear Bellamy, I am very sorry to have to write 
as I do in the enclosed letter to Mrs. Storer, which I 
shall ask you to read and then hand to her. I have 
been most reluctant to write as I herein write ; I am 
deeply attached to both of you ; but it is evident that 
I cannot longer delay using the plainest kind of lan- 
guage, for it is evident that such plain language is 



31 



necessar}'^ to prevent the American government from 
being put in a false and wholly improper position. 

Sincerely yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt." 

The second letter, which was enclosed in that just given, 
was addressed to Mrs. Storer. It is so long that I refrain 
from giving it in full here, but refer to the copy which I 
attach, and I ask that it be carefully read in the light of 
the occurrences which preceded it, of which I have given 
the history above. (See No. 3 appended.) 

I cannot trust myself to express fully the feeling of in- 
dignation with which I read tlie letter addressed to Mrs. 
Storer. Though I was in the public service, I felt, and 
still feel, that I had lost none of the rights which a man 
has to judge of the propriety of letters addressed to his 
wife, and to resent an improper communication. I did not 
then know, what I have since learned, that the letter was not 
even written for my wife's eyes or mine alone, but had been 
shown to others before it was sent, and thus used to make a 
case against a lady, a trusting friend, who could not be 
heard in her own defence. My wife was deliberately ac- 
cused of having quoted isolated sentences from the Presi- 
dent's letters to convince other persons that he was doing 
exactly what, as he asserts, he had explicitly stated in 
writing that he would not do. This charge of shameful 
conduct was based on no evidence which could even have 
misled the writer into a hasty judgment, but was in answer 
to a letter which, whether approved or not, at least fur- 
nishes no such evidence either in itself or in its enclos- 
ures. The tone of long-suffering and outraged patience, 
the careful omission of all mention of anything that the 



32 



writer had liimself done and authorized to be done in the 
matters complained of, the quotations from the letters writ- 
ten at the time of my errand to the Pope, without any of 
the facts and circumstances related above which would 
give those letters their true character or show that they 
were an angry complaint because what he had directed to 
be done had become known, — these things, with the abu- 
sive personal characterization of my wife, and the assumed 
indignation with what had been, in fact, permitted and 
encouraged where not expressly directed, seemed to me 
to put the letter outside the limit of anything justifiable. 
even in a stranger. What a sense of outraged friendship it 
aroused in us can perhaps be understood by any one who 
has read even the small part of the private correspondence 
given above. 

The President's letter begins by characterizing Mrs. 
Storer's letter in a way which could hardly give a fair idea 
of its character to one who had not seen it. Her letter is 
given above, and reference to it will show whether it pro- 
posed that Mrs. Storer should be authorized to go to Rome 
to drag the United States government into an intrigue. 
Such a proposal might well have been "astounding." But 
why should the President have been astounded at a sug-' 
gestion that Mrs. Storer should be entrusted to take to the 
' Pope a private message from him which should deny that 
the President had interfered to procure the appointment of ■ 
Archbishop Farley? The President had already done far 
more than that in sending, through me and others, affirma- 
tive personal messages in favor of Archbishop Ireland ; 
but no allusion to this appears in the letter. 

The assertion that Mrs. Storer's letter to I\Ir. Taft " if 



33 



published " would misrepresent both the President and the 
American government, again, is not borne out by anything 
that Mrs. Storer wrote to Judge Taft, and the President's 
indignant denial of her right to " meddle " is inconsistent 
with the previous history of these matters. Mrs. Storer's 
letters to Cardinal Merry del Val and the Princess Alex- 
andrine are spoken of as "utterly improper " and "intol- 
erable," which would carry the impression that the Presi- 
dent had seen what he condemned ; but he had never seen 
them. The Princess Alexandrine was not in public life, 
and Mrs. Storer's letter to her was part of a private corre- 
spondence between two ladies which I should have thought 
beyond the range of such comment. The letter to the 
Cardinal, while it did concern the promotion of Archbishop 
Ireland, was written by my wife as a private person to an 
officer of her Church. If copies of these letters had been 
kept I should gladly have produced them ; but none were 
taken. I may say positively, however, that neither of them 
made any allusion to Mr. Roosevelt. The President's 
statement that, though approached by many persons, he had 
refused to " interfere " by requesting an appointment is to 
be taken in connection with what he admits that he did 
say to such persons, namely, that he would be delighted to 
see Archbishop Ireland promoted. With that admission 
the President has stated his position substantially as both 
I and Mrs. Storer have always understood it, and the "out- 
rage " of which he says Mrs. Storer had been guilty was 
never committed. What the President has said to many 
people appears ; more than this neither Mrs. Storer nor I 
have ever attributed to him. I wish to be as precise and 
emphatic as possible in this denial. We have neither of us 



34 



ever represented to any person, by word or letter, that the 
President requested anything from the Vatican, or put him in 
the attitude of exerting pressure or a preference for one can- 
didate rather than another, or of doing or saying anything 
officially or as if with the government behind him, and the 
statement that Mrs. Storer had written letters conveying a 
wrong impression of his attitude is a wholly incorrect 
characterization of letters which the President had never 
seen. We have repeated to prelates of the church, includ- 
ing the Pope, expressions of the President, but only ex- 
pressions of the precise character which he admits in this 
letter he was in the habit of making to many persons, and 
we have always done this with full regard for the distinc- 
tion which the President points out between private wishes 
and official requests. We repeated those expressions be- 
cause they were used to us with the unmistakable purpose 
that we should repeat them, and, at least in one instance, 
with the express request that I should repeat them to the 
Pope ; and what the President has said and done with me 
he has said and done with other members of our Church, 
including prelates, whom he certainly expected to be influ- 
enced by his expressions and to quote them, as no doubt 
those persons have done. The President refers to the let- 
ter of Cardinal Merry del Val as a rebuke to Mrs. Storer. 
Whether it is so can be judged by referring to the copy 
given herewith. Certainly neither this nor other letters 
from the Cardinal or from any other authority ever con- 
veyed to us the impression of a rebuke. The President 
speaks of what he had been continually hearing about Mrs. 
Storer for the last couple of years, as if he had been for 
that period displeased by her conduct ; and yet we had 



35 



never had an intimation of this, but, on the contrary, his 
letter written three weeks before, on November 20, quoted 
above, conveyed to us a strong evidence of his approval. 
He asserts that he had been unofficially informed on behalf 
of Berlin and of Paris that it would not be agreeable, be- 
cause of Mrs. Storer's actions, to have me as Ambassador 
in either place. I know nothing about Berlin, but I have 
taken pains to learn whether this was true of Paris, and it 
is explicitly denied by M. Jusserand in a recent letter as 
follows : — 

"44 RUE Hamelin 
July 20, 1906. 

Dear Mrs. Storer : I have the same answer to 
make to your letter of the 19th just received, as I 
made to your former one, and the answer is : no, cer- 
tainly not. 

Neither Mr. Delcasse nor any one asked me to 
make any representations at the State Department or 
elsewhere to prevent Mr. Storer's being appointed to 
Paris nor did I ever make any of any kind. 

This new story with which I am very unduly asso- 
ciated is not truer than the other and I sincerely hope 
there may be no more of the same sort. I have the 
honor of returning to you herewith Archbishop Ire- 
land's letter which you had kindly sent for my perusal 
and I beg you to believe me. 

Very respectfully yours, 

Jusserand." 

A similar denial has been made by M. Delcasse who 
recently, on April 24, 1906, assured Archbishop Ireland 
that never during his ministry did the French government 
express itself in opposition to Mr. Storer, and added that, 
on the contrary, he had expected Mr. Storer's nomination, 

36 



and would have been happy to receive it, and M. Delcasse 
voluntarily authorized the repetition in any quarter of w^hat 
he had said. 

The President adds a postscript in which he quotes 
from letters written to Mrs. Storer in December, 1903. 
Those are the letters referred to above as written to me at 
the time of the newspaper report of my audience with 
Pope Pius X, spoken of above. The quotation from the 
letter of December 19, 1903, shows that the President 
said to Mgr. O'Connell, "Personally I have a very strong 
friendship and admiration for the Archbishop and that in- 
dividually it would please me greatly to see him made a 
Cardinal." More than this, we have never attributed to 
the President, and have always known well, that he "could 
not, as President, in any way try to help any clergyman," 
and have respected that caution ; and indeed it is hard to 
understand how any person of experience could expect 
from any President the sort of interference that he so em- 
phatically refuses. The letters of December 27 and De- 
cember 30, 1903, are fully discussed above, in connection 
with my errand to the Pope. That the letters were writ- 
ten in angry displeasure because a newspaper had by 
some means discovered what the President had expressly 
ordered to be done, — this, as I have already observed, 
does not appear, and presumably was not known to the 
members of the Cabinet. 

To the President's letter, addressed to me, I made no 
reply. It is my failure to answer this and another letter 
which soon followed that has now been officially given out 
as the reason for my removal from office. As to that letter, 
it will be observed that it not only does not in terms call for 



37 



an answer, but opens no subject which involved an answer 
from me. It merely covers an enclosure addressed to my 
wife, and it is my wife who is asked to reply to the enclos- 
ure. Moreover, the letter to me is not only marked " strictly 
personal," but is definitely unofficial in character, addressed 
"Dear Bellamy," and is obviously a part of that volumin- 
ous personal correspondence with me, which, it must be 
borne in mind, had been actively going on for several 
years. The fact that it related, through the enclosure, to 
my wife's conduct in certain public matters, could not 
serve of itself to make it official if any distinction between 
personal and official communications, referring to public 
matters, exists. That distinction the President strongly 
insists upon respecting his own remarks in this very con- 
nection, and, certainly, if available for him it is available 
for me. If the distinction does not exist, or is not to be 
observed, I can onl}^ say that I and my wife have received, 
since I have been in the diplomatic service, a great num- 
ber of letters from Mr. Roosevelt commenting on public 
men and public matters with such unrestrained freedom 
that to treat them as official would seem to me a staggering 
proposal. I am, however, quite ready to lay the entire 
correspondence before the State Department, or the Cab- 
inet, if the President's view is that this correspondence is 
a part of my official business. At all events, I regarded 
the letter to me as private, to be answered or not as I 
might decide on personal grounds ; and on grounds of 
that character I decided not to answer it, as that seemed to 
me to be the most dignified way to treat a letter which 
could only be adequately answered by writing more plainly 
than I cared to trust myself to do. 

38 



I certainly could not knowingly have committed the 
unpardonable breach of official manners of leaving unno- 
ticed an official letter from my government. 

But it is plain that it cannot be a mere literal failure to 
answer the letter addressed to me that is complained of. 
An answer confined to that could have been, at most, a 
mere acknowledgment of the receipt of the enclosure. It 
is the letter to my wife which alone is significant. At my 
request this letter was left unanswered by h^r. 

Respecting this letter it is hard to understand the exact 
nature of the complaint that is made against me. As I 
have said, it was my wife who was addressed and from 
whom a categorical answer was asked. Is it now asserted 
that her failure to answer was my official misconduct? 
Such a contention puts the wife of an Ambassador and her 
correspondence in a new and singular light. I do not 
make this distinction between my wife and myself as a 
technical ground for evading responsibility. On the con- 
trary, I assume the whole responsibility for her failure to 
answer, for, as I have said, it was by my request that she 
did not notice the letter; but I point out that the fact that 
the letter was addressed to her, concerned her conduct, and 
requested in terms a personal answer from her, and an 
answer which she alone could have given, justified me in 
dealing with the letter as one addressed definitely to my 
wife, and one wholly personal to her, though, of course, 
through her, personal to me. I was entitled, I insist, to 
determine what position to take respecting that letter by 
the feelings and rules of conduct which a gentleman in 
private life might apply to correspondence addressed to 
his wife, and my decision is to be judged accordingly. At 



39 



all events, it was upon these considerations that I did act, 
and I had no hesitation in deciding that the letter should 
not be answered. The manner in which the subject was 
opened made discussion impossible, and it was plain that 
unless I was prepared to concur in a letter to be written by 
her, abjectly confessing misbehavior where none had been, 
and promising to offend no further, there could be no 
answer which would not merely lead to still more angry 
correspondence. The result of silence I well understood 
might be that which the President had expressly stated in 
his letter, — that my resignation would be asked for. That 
I was ready to face, for I preferred to leave the service 
rather than sacrifice self-respect in an attempt to save my 
place, — an attempt which, even if I could have brought 
myself to make it, I was sure could not long have availed 
against a deliberate wish to have the place in order to give 
it to some one else. That I should be abruptly dismissed, 
as finally happened, did not, I admit, occur to me, though 
I cannot say that I should have changed my decision even 
to avert that. I had already sent in my resignation in 
January, 1905, and that resignation had been ever since 
then in the President's hands unacted on. My impulse 
was to leave to the President the responsibility of taking 
on his own motion the step which he threatened, rather 
that to adopt the alternative which he offered of sending 
in a second resignation, a step which, if unexplained, 
would have been interpreted as an admission that I retired 
because my wife was not to be allowed to do in the Church 
what the President wrongly accused her of doing. 

The President's two letters given above were received 
on December 26, and, as I have stated, were not answered. 



40 



Shortly after that day I went to Egypt on leave of absence 
granted by the State Department. 

On February 3, 1906, the President wrote me a second 
letter as follows : — 

"White House. 

Personal. Washington, February 3, 1906. 

My dear Bellamy, On December nth last, nearly 
two months ago, I wrote you a letter enclosing one 
for Mrs. Storer. Both letters called for answers. I 
should like to have these answers as early as is con- 
venient. 

Sincerely yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt." 

This letter was sent to the address in Egypt which I had 
given to the State Department, and was received on Febru- 
ary 26. It will be observed that, like the previous letter, 
it is marked "personal," and is addressed to me by my 
Christian name. If the designation means anything this 
letter formed part of a non-official correspondence. 

Had I answered this letter instantly on its receipt the 
answer could not have reached Washington before March 
14, allowing only sixteen days for the course of mail, and 
of this, of course, the President must have been well aware, 
having sent his letter to Egypt. Without waiting for that 
time to elapse, however, the President sent to me on March 
5 the following telegram addressing it not to my address 
in Egypt, as in the case of the letter, but to Vienna, 
whence it was forwarded, by intermediate repetitions, to 
the address in Egypt which was still my address in Egypt 
as registered in the State Department : — 



41 



" Storer, 

American Ambassador, 

Vienna. 

^ You have not answered my letter of December 
nth although I supplemented it by another letter of 
February 3d. I do not know whether this is because 
you do not wish to remain in the Diplomatic Service 
or are unwilling to comply with the requirements 
which I have stated. In either event I request your 
resignation as Ambassador. 

Theodore Roosevelt." 

On receipt of this telegram, without a moment's unnec- 
essary delay, I complied with the request and tendered my 
resignation by the following letter : — 

" On leave of Absence 
in Egypt near Luxor 
7th March 1906. 

The Honorable Elihu Root 

Secretary of State. 

Sir : — In obedience to the peremptory telegram of 
the President just received via Vienna and Cairo I 
have the honor to tender my resignation as Ambassa- 
dor of the United States. 

Whoever may be designated my successor I beg 
that he be informed that it will give me pleasure to 
afford him any information or service in my power 
regarding his installation. I am, etc., etc. 

Bellamy Storer." 

My letter should have reached its destination, allowing 
the shortest interval for mail, not earlier than March 23. 
Without waiting for it, and before it possibly could have 
arrived, the Department of State, on March 20, sent the 
following telegram, addressed to me in Egypt : — 

42 



" President desires me to inform you that you are 
recalled as ambassador Austria-Hungary, and that 
your quality as such this day ceases. Letters of re- 
call will be delivered by your successor. 

Root " 

This was followed, on receipt of my resignation, by the 
following letter, confirming my dismissal : — 

"Department of State, 

Washington. March 26, 1906. 

Bellamy Storer, Esquire, 

Vienna, Austria. 

Sir : I have to acknowledge the receipt of your 
letter of the 7th instant in which you state that in 
obedience to the peremptory telegram of the President 
just received by you, via Vienna and Cairo, you 
tender your resignation as Ambassador. 

In reply I beg to say that betore the receipt of your 
letter your recall by the President had already taken 
effect and your official character had ceased. 

I am. Sir, 

Your obedient servant, 

Elihu Root." 

It will be seen that I was thus recalled after having 
complied punctiliously with the President's request by 
sending my resignation, and sending it for the second time, 
and that my removal was effected by a telegram while my 
letter of resignation, sent with all possible despatch, was 
on its way. That telegram was immediately followed by 
the President's sending to the Senate for appointment as 
Ambassador to Austria-Hungary the name of Hon. Charles 
S. Francis. This was the gentleman whom he had men- 
tioned, it will be remembered, in his letter to me of Janu- 



43 



ary 9, 1905, as one who had done substantial work in the 
campaign, and for whom he might later wish my place. 

That nothing might be omitted in the attempt to dis- 
credit me publicly the following telegram was sent, on 
March 27, to the Foreign Department of the Austrian 
government, addressed to Count Goluchowski : — 

" I have the honor to advise Your Excellency that 
the President has been pleased to terminate at once 
and without any such delay as would be incident to 
the transmission of a letter of lecall by mail, the 
authority of his Ambassador Mr. Bellamy Storer to 
represent him. The President has accordingly re- 
called Mr. Storer, whose representative functions have 
already ceased. This action will be supplemented 
by a formal letter of recall which already has been 
signed and will be presented to you in accordance 
with former custom in such matters. The Secretary 
of Embassy at Vienna Mr. G. R. Rives has been 
named Charge d'Affaires. I request Your Excel- 
lency to receive him and treat with him in that capa- 
city." 

This telegram, sent as if in an emergency, and appar- 
ently to meet the danger into which I might plunge the 
government by holding myself out at Vienna for a few 
days longer as clothed with the authority of an Ambassa- 
dor, is unprecedented, so far as I am aware, in diplomatic 
usage. 

No reason for my summary discharge was vouchsafed 
me, nor was any given out in any responsible way. News- 
paper correspondents in Washington published statements 
obtained from sources to which they had access, saying 
that it was because of my wife's " interference " in affairs 
of the Roman Catholic Church, and her misuse of letters 



44 



from the President, but nothing appeared in such a way 
that I could answer it. I later learned indirectly that the 
President was making another charge against Mrs. Storer, 
this being that she had meddled with French politics by 
taking part in an anti-Republican intrigue to promote the 
marriage of Victor Bonaparte with a member of the Or- 
leanist family. This charge the President evidently re- 
peated to members of his Cabinet, for one of them has 
lately referred to it, and has said that he had been given 
to understand that the French Ambassador in Washington 
was the authority for it. The accusation was absolutely 
false. Neither Mrs. Storer nor I had ever been parties to 
any such plan, or had any sympathy with it, or any knowl- 
edge of its existence beyond what was rumored in the 
newspapers. Had that charge been seasonably brought to 
my notice, as I venture to say should have been done 
before giving it credence, we could have proved at once 
its absolute untruth. In order to fix, if possible, the au- 
thority for the false charge, Mrs. Storer applied, in July 
last, to the French Ambassador, and I give a copy of his 
reply : 

"44 Rue Hamelin, 
% 7th July, 1906. 

E\ear Mrs. Storer, I have received your letter in- 
forming me that through different sources in America 
you have heard me quoted as the authority for a state- 
ment according to which ^'^ou have interested yourself 
in Prince Victor Napoleon and the Imperialist party 
in France. You ask me from what source I may 
have derived such a story. 

I have only this to say : The statement is entirely 
false; I have never said to anyone what your inform- 
ants are pleased to attribute to me. I never connected 



45 



you in any fashion whatsoever, by word of mouth or 
otherwise, with Prince Victor and his party, nor ever 
said anything which could be construed as having any 
such meaning. 

I am as surprised at your correspondent's statements 
as you may have been, and I thank you for having 
given me this opportunity of most emphatically deny- 
ing them. 

I have the honor to be, dear Mrs. Storer, 

Very sincerely yours, / 

JUSSERAND." 

Finally, in order to elicit some definite statement of the 

charges against me, I sent to the Secretary of State, on 

June 23, the following letter : — 

" 23 June 1906. 
To Honorable Elihu Root, 

Secretary of State, 

Washington. 

Sir, Your telegram announcing to me my removal 
from office, — without reference to my resignation 
previously forwarded, — and your letter acknowledg- 
ing the receipt of my resignation, were accompanied 
by no explanations or reason for this action of the 
Department. 

Afterisome necessary uncertainty as to my plans, 
I find my return to the United States will be delayed 
for a month or more. I, therefore, address j-ou by 
letter believing that lam entitled to have exactly the 
reasons both of the President's wish to remove me 
from the Service, and of the manner in which this 
removal was effected. I request that I be informed 
of the grounds of both, by the Department in writing. 

This information I ask may be given me in as full 
detail as possible. My address is 'care Morgan, 
Harjes & Co., Paris.' 

Your obt. servant, 

Bellamy Storer." 



46 



To this I received the following reply : — 

"Department of State 

Washington, July i8, 1906. 

"Sir : In reply to your letter of June 23rd I am di- 
rected by the President to write you as follows : On 
December 11, 1905, the President wrote you on a 
matter of great importance involving your retention in 
the service, a letter which called for an immediate 
answer. If you chose not to answer it the only proper 
course open to you, consistent with the demands alike 
of personal and official propriety, was immediately to 
resign your position as Ambassador. You, however, 
left the letter unanswered, and indeed without even 
acknowledgment of its receipt. After waiting about 
two months without receiving an answer the President, 
— because of his desire to treat you with the utmost 
consideration, — instead of removing you, wrote you 
again on' February 3, 1906. This second letter you 
also left unanswered and without any acknowledg- 
ment of its receipt. After waiting a month, on March 
5, 1906, the following telegram was sent you : 

'Storer, 

American Ambassador, Vienna. 

You have not answered my letter of December 
eleventh, although I supplemented it bv another letter 
of February third. I do not know whether this is be- 
cause you do not wish to remain in the Diplomatic 
service or are unwilling to comply with the require- 
ments which I have stated. In either event I request 
your resignation as Ambassador. 

Theodore Roosevelt.' 

In this telegram you were merely requested to re- 
sign ; a further act of consideration on the part of the 
Administration. 

In view of your failure to answer either of the let- 
ters referred to above, it was clearly your duty, unless 

47 



you expected the Department to believe that you in- 
tended to leav^e this telegram likewise unanswered, to 
acknowledge it by cable. You did not thus acknowl- 
edge it. After waiting two weeks without receiving 
any answer, by which time three months and a half 
had elapsed without any answer from you to the origi- 
nal letter, six weeks without any answer from you to 
the second letter, and a fortnight without any answer 
from you to the telegram, you were notified by cable 
of your removal. This for the first time drew an an- 
swer from you by cable, and immediately afterwards 
your letter of resignation was received. 

As you had already been removed and your suc- 
cessor's nomination sent to the Senate, no further ac- 
tion about you was possible ; even if, which was not 
the case, it had been desired by the Department or the 
Administration to take such further action. 

Yours truly, 

Robert Bacon, 

Acting Secretary of State." 

By this letter my recall is put solely upon the ground 
of a gross neglect of correspondence in failing to answer 
two letters and a telegram addressed to me on official busi- 
ness. Nothing is said of the letter to my wife, or of the 
character of either of the letters. Whether the letter of 
December ii, 1905, to me "called for immediate answer," 
or called for any answer, I have discussed above. It seems 
that I am now charged with neglect in not answering by 
cable instead of by letter the telegram of March 5, demand- 
ing my resignation. It is enough to reply to this that I did 
not telegraph my resignation because I was not asked to do 
so, and to have done it of my own motion would have been 
contrary, not only to usage, but to the rule expressly laid 
down by the State Department. The " Regulations for Dip- 

48 



lomatic Officers," issued by the State Department for the 
guidance of such officers, contain this direction : 

^^ Article 2'j^. 
Resignation ; how tendered. 
A diplomatic officer's resignation should always be 
tendered to the President ; but the letter tendering such 
resignation should be addressed to the Secretary of 
State. The telegraph should not be resorted to ex- 
cept in case of emergency." 

To these instructions I undertook to conform punctili- 
ously, supposing that if a telegraphic reply was desired I 
should have been so instructed, and not knowing that this 
was considered a "case of emergency." 

I may add here, as bearing on the character of my 
correspondence with the President, that, as I had under- 
stood, and still understand, the rules of the State Depart- 
ment, all official communications passing between an Am- 
bassador and his government are required to be through 
the State Department, and I had supposed this rule to be 
applicable as well to official communications from the 
President as to official communications to him. If I am 
right in my understanding of the rule it is also to be noticed 
that I was entitled to have at least a formal preliminary 
communication from the State Department before a "strictly 
personal " letter written by the President could properly 
be made the occasion of my summary recall. 

I have endeavored to give candidly all the facts and cir- 
cumstances which brought about my removal. I have 
been dismissed from office with discredit, my diplomatic 
career, previously honorable, as I have been assured by 
the government, and certainly never assailed, has been 



49 



terminated in disgrace, so far as the President could inflict 
such disgrace. I am given to understand that no criticism 
is made of my discharge of duty, and I may say that the gov- 
ernment to which I was accredited treated me on my de- 
parture with unusual distinction, and gave me unsolicited 
assurances of its respect and regret. No reason for my dis- 
missal has yet been given to the public — and the reason 
now given to me, a failure to answer letters, is one which 
on its face is but formal, and which of itself forces the ques- 
tions. What letters and why unanswered? It is to answer 
these questions, and to throw myself on the judgment of 
fair-minded men, that I make this statement. I do not look 
for any reappointment or other redress. I do not write for 
the purpose of recrimination. I write because my self- 
respect demands that being, as I think, unjustly treated, I 
should resent the injustice, and ask that the facts be heard, 
and a fair and enlightened judgment passed upon my con- 
duct. 

There may be persons to whom the mere fact that I, or 
my wife, had anything to do with the Catholic Church will 
seem sufficient reason for almost any punishment, and by 
whom our action in that respect will be contemptuously 
dismissed as meddling and intriguing. If there are such 
persons I shall not argue with them, nor attempt to convince 
them that service to the country is not inconsistent with 
service to the Church, nor stop to point out again that it 
was because the country was brought into important and 
delicate relations with the Church that these things became 
necessary. I will only affirm that neither I nor my wife 
have ever set the interests of the Church against those of 
our country, or done anything for the Church which we are 



50 



unwilling to avow, or sought for the Church anything but 
what every patriotic Protestant would agree to be also the 
highest benefits to our country, benefits which, as we sought 
them, were to be open, clear, and free from every ecclesi- 
astical entanglement. 

It must be borne in mind that the President's interest in 
the selection of a Cardinal was not due to us. He had 
his own plans and wishes, and his own reasons for them, 
and he expressed his wishes in favor of one Cardinal or 
another quite independently of us, and often without our 
knowledge, whenever and to whomever he chose. If 
these expressions, either as he used them or as they were 
repeated by others, committed him beyond the point where 
he now wishes to stand, we are not responsible. We are 
answerable only for the proper use of what he said to us, 
and as to that there has been no room for misunderstanding 
between the President and me or my wife. Aside from his 
special commission to me, he has told us definitely and re- 
peatedly his feelings and wishes about Archbishop Ireland 
in connection with a Cardinal's place ; he has said the same 
things to Archbishop Ireland himself, and thereby gained, 
or retained, the Archbishop's friendly influence ; he has 
said the same things, as his letters state, to other persons, 
prelates of the Church, who approached him on the subject 
and were allowed to leave him assured of his sympathy ; 
he has said these things, not only without enjoining privacy, 
but with the unmistakable purpose that they should be 
repeated. 

The President has, it is true, made a distinction be- 
tween expressions of his personal wishes, and any official 
"interference" or request, or any attempt to apply pressure 
from the government. 

51 



Whether it was possible for him to preserve, under the 
circumstances, this distinction between the things which 
he has said so pointedly and so often to interested per- 
sons, and his official wishes, I will not discuss. I, at 
least, and my wife, have always respected his wish to 
have that distinction insisted on, and have never misrep- 
resented him in this respect. How far other persons have 
shown the same caution I do not know, but, considering 
the situation and the number of persons spoken to by him, 
it is not strange that reports should gain wide circulation, 
in Rome and elsewhere, that the President had expressed 
definite wishes about one or another candidate, or strange 
that the exact form of his expressions should not always 
have been preserved. For such reports the President 
must hold responsible other persons with whom he has 
talked, not us. That we are not answerable for all that 
may have been quoted from him is plain from the fact that 
since March, 1906, at least, we have not been in a posi- 
tion to quote him at all, and yet reports of his wishes have 
never been more persistent or definite in Rome and else- 
where than since that date. Almost as I write, the Paris 
and American newspapers are publishing precise state- 
ments from their Roman correspondents (notably the 
Sunday "Figaro" of October 7, 1906) to the effect that 
the President has lately written personal letters to the Pope 
in favor of Archbishop Farley, and that the latter's promo- 
tion to be Cardinal is imminent. Why is my wife to be 
held responsible if echoes of the President's previous ex- 
pressions to many persons about Archbishop Ireland came 
back to the White House by way of Rome? To whom, I 
must also ask, is the President listening, when he accepts. 



52 



without investigation, false and malicious gossip about my 
wife's participation in French politics? Why am I selected 
to receive the discharge of all the anger which, for some 
reason, the President chose to exhibit when his remarks 
about Church matters were made undesirably public? 
Why did a confidential letter written by my wife to Mr. 
Taft (an intimate friend) suddenly become so dangerous 
when shown to Mr. Root? 

If the President finally found it convenient to change his 
attitude in Church matters and therefore wished to get rid 
of me, or if the time had come when my office was wanted 
for another, why was not my place obtained in the way 
usual in our politics, by asking for my resignation? I 
have always known well that I might be required to give 
up my office at any time, however well I might be filling 
it, if politics should require it for another man. This is, 
unhappily, an occurrence common in the diplomatic ser- 
vice of the United States, and I could expect no better 
treatment than that which any officer in the service is 
always facing as a possibility. With a resignation I was 
ready at every moment, and I had made the process of 
getting my place easy by twice definitely offering to resign, 
and for the last year I had held office with my resignation 
lying unacted on in the State Department at Washington. 
But this would not do, and even the arrival of my reiter- 
ated resignation by mail could not be waited for a few 
days. I was thrown out, by cable, with as little hesitation 
as if detected in a common fraud or a treasonable plot, 
and quite in that manner. 

It is against this treatment that I protest, and this pro- 
test, made primarily for my own vindication, is made as 



53 



well in behalf of every other officer in the diplomatic ser- 
vice, and of the country itself, which is concerned in the 
honor and respect which its service is to receive at home 
and abroad. 

I write 'this letter without the knowledge of Archbishop 
Ireland. 

I have the honor to be your obedient servant. 

BELLAMY STORER. 
Cincinnati, Ohio, November, 1906. 



54 



COPIES OF LETTERS. 

(O 

Rome, Babuino 41. 
April ist, 1904. 

Dear, dear Mrs. Storer : Many thanks for your kind 
letter from Abbazia. Monseigneur Cardinal Merry del 
Val got your letters. 

He told me, nor he nor any one has the least influence 
with the Holy Father, who prays first, then studies every 
question himself, then decides. So when I had my private 
audience the 25th at 6 o'clock when I stayed a half an 
hour — the moment I began to read your letter to him con- 
cerning Archbishop Ireland he said : " Ho studiato la causa 
— Sara fatto." 

So Archbishop Ireland will be made a Cardinal at the 
next consistory. In few words the Holy Father said he 
understood perfectly well the good which will result from 
this election, showing the friendly feelings toward the 
American government. I cannot tell 3^ou how happy I 
feel and how fatherly the Pope was. Till now, nothing is 
decided when the next Consistory will take place — by no 
means before the summer. I enjoy my sejour very much 
though the weather is bad and very cold. I will stay here 
till the 1 2th of April. I will have so much to tell you. 
For today I cannot write more. Happy Easter to you and 
Mr. Storer. With much love, believe me, dear, dear Mrs. 
Storer 

Your devoted friend 

ALEXANDRINE WINDISCH-GRAETZ. 



(2) 



Rome, Nov. 23, 1905. 



Dear Mrs. Storer, In reply to your letter of the 21st, 
I must inform you that, as far as I know, there will not be 
another American Cardinal named at the next Consistory. 



55 



This does not mean that there will never be another named, 
but the Holy Father does not seem to intend naming one 
at present. The matter is one of a very delicate nature 
for it lies so entirely with His Holiness himself and I my- 
self cannot venture to interfere unduly. I had never heard 
that the Holy Father had expressed himself in the way 
referred to by you and I fancy there must be some mis- 
understanding. However, I am sure that any attempt to 
bring pressure to bear in such a delicate matter cannot fur- 
ther your wishes. I should also say that the same wish 
has been conveyed just as forcibly and with equally good 
reasons in favor of at least two other very distinguished 
Prelates in the United States, so that in the event of the 
Holy Father determining to name another American Car- 
dinal the choice of the person would not be as easy a matter 
as it may seem to those who very naturally have only one 
in view. More than this I cannot say without overstep- 
ping the limits of a discretion which I must be the first to 
observe in a matter of this nature. With kind regards 
to the Ambassador I am, dear Mrs. Storer, 

Yours devotedly in Christ, 

R. Card. MERRY DEL VAL. 



(3) 
The White House 

Washington, December nth 1905. 

My dear Mrs. Storer, — Secretary Taft has just shown 
me your letter of November 26th, this letter being evidently 
intended for me as much as for him. On inquiry of Mrs. 
Roosevelt I find that she had received from you a letter to 
me which is probably the one to which you refer in your 
letter to Mr. Taft, but she tells me she treated this letter 
as she sometimes has treated other letters that you have 
sent her to deliver to me, when she knew that the receipt 
of them would merely make me indignant and puzzle me 

S6 



as to what action I ought to take about Belhimy's remain- 
ing in the service ; that is, she did not give it to me. 

Your direct or implied complaints of and reflections upon 
my own personal conduct give me no concern, but I am 
very gravely concerned at the mischievous effect your let- 
ters must have in misrepresenting the position of the United 
States government, and by the far reaching governmental 
scandal your indiscretion may at any time cause. 

I have now^ seen your letter to me, sent through Mrs. 
Roosevelt. In it you actually propose that I should au- 
thorize you to go to Rome to take part in what I must call 
an ecclesiastical intrigue — and to drag the United States 
Government into it. Such a proposal is simply astounding. 

You say that Cardinal Merry del Val has stated that I 
have requested that two archbishops — one Farley, be 
made Cardinals. All you had to say was that such a state- 
ment was a deliberate untruth because you knew that I 
had refused to make such a request even for Ireland. 

You say in your letter "You can trust me, really." 
How can you say this when you write to Taft a letter 
which if by accident published would absolutely mis- 
represent, in the most mischievous manner both me and 
the American Government? You have no more right to 
meddle in these matters than Mrs. Reid would have to 
meddle in the Ritualist controversy, or Mrs. Tower to 
try to take charge of the relations of Germany to the 
American Lutherans. 

Your letter to Mr. Taft, and the letters to Cardinal 
Merry del Val and Archbishop Keane (of the answers to 
which you enclose copies) and your letter to the Princess 
Alexandrine (of the answer to which you also enclose a 
copy) are all letters which it is utterly improper for you to 
have written, in your position as the wife of an American 
Ambassador, and show a continued course of conduct on 
your part which is intolerable if your husband is to remain 
in the diplomatic service. In the first place I wish it to be 
explicitly understood that though since I have been Pres- 
ident I have been approached at different times by prelates 
of your church and even by laymen in your church with 



57 



requests that I ask of the Vatican or express a preference 
for the appointment of some person as Cardinal, I have 
always positively and unequivocally refused directly or 
indirectly thus to ask for the appointment of any man as 
Cardinal and it would have been a gross impropriety for 
me to have made any such request, while it is an outrage 
to represent me as having in any shape made it. To 
Archbishop Keane, to Monseigneur O'Connell, and to 
other men who have approached me on behalf of Arch- 
bishop Ireland, I have said that I had a very high regard 
for the Archbishop, and that I should be delighted to see 
him made a Cardinal, but that I could no more try to ex- 
ercise pressure to have him made a Cardinal than pressure 
to get the Archbishop of Canterbury to establish an Arch- 
bishopric in America. Other persons have spoken to me, 
saving that Ireland could not be made a Cardinal, unless 
another cardinal was made in the Eastern States, and that 
they hoped that two Cardinals (usually mentioning Ireland 
and Farley) would be appointed, one in the east and one 
in the west. I always answered that I had a great regard 
for both men and would be delighted to see them made 
Cardinals, just as there were Episcopal clergymen and 
Methodist clergymen whom I would be delighted to see 
made Bishops, but that I would no more interfere, as you 
desire me to interfere, and as you have yourself been try- 
ing to interfere, under any possible circumstances. Your 
letters not only convey a totallj' wrong impression of my 
attitude but the}"^ are such as you have no business what- 
ever to write, in view of the position of your husband in 
the diplomatic service. The letter of Cardinal Merry del 
Val to you of November 23d, is a rebuke to you express- 
ing plainly his belief that you have been unwarrantably 
officious in matters with which you have properly no con- 
cern. It should of itself be enough to show to you how 
exceedingly unwise and improper your action in writing to 
him was. I am indignant that the wife of an Ambassador 
in the United States service should have written such a 
letter, should have given the impression undoubtedly con- 
veyed in that letter, and should have incurred such a 

58 



rebuke. You do not seem to realize that it is out of the 
question for me knowing!}^ to permit the wife of one of our 
diplomats to engage in ecclesiastical intrigues to influence 
the Vatican. 

For the last couple of years I have continually been 
hearing of your having written one man or the other about 
such matters. I find you are alluded to by foreign mem- 
bers of the diplomatic body in Washington, Paris and 
Berlin as the "American Ambassadress to Rome." I was~ 
unofficially informed on behalf both of Berlin and of Paris, 
that because of these actions of yours it would not be 
agreeable to them to have Bellamy come as Ambassador to _ 
either place. Information of this kind has been repeatedly 
brought to Secretary Root. I have consulted him and 
Secretary Bonaparte, who is a member of your church, as 
to this last letter of yours. Root's feeling about the case 
is stronger than I care to put into words. Bonaparte's 
feeling is exactly my own. SutBce it to say that in any 
event it will probably be impossible. But I must go a 
little farther than this. You and Bellamy must understand 
that so long as Bellamy continues in the diplomatic ser- 
vice of the United States you must refrain from writing or j 
speaking in the way you have been doing on any of these 
matters, affecting what are simply the personal politics of 
church policy, to any one and above all to any one con- 
nected with the Vatican. If you cannot make up your 
mind absolutely to alter your conduct in this regard while 
your husband is in the diplomatic service, to refrain abso- 
lutely from taking any further part in any matter of eccle- 
siastical politics at the Vatican and to refuse to write or 
speak to anyone (whether laymen or ecclesiastics, at 
home or abroad) as you have been writing and speakincr 
in this Cardinal's hat matter, then Bellamy cannot with 
propriety continue to remain Ambassador of the United 
States. 

I must ask you to give me this positive promise in writ- 
ing if Bellamy is to continue in the service ; and if you 
even unintentionally violate it, I shall have to ask for Bel- 
lam3''s resignation ; for I can no longer afford to have the ( 



59 



chance of scandal being brought on the entire American 
diplomatic service and on the American Government itself, 
by such indiscreet and ill-advised action as yours has 
been. 

Yours very truly 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

P.S. Since writing the above I have looked up my 
correspondence with you and Bellamy and I find that I 
have expressed myself not merely once, but again and 
again about this matter in terms which it was simply im- 
possible for you to misunderstand. 

For instance on December 19th 1903 I wrote to Bellamy 
saying that Monseigneur O'Connell asked me to write some- 
thing on behalf of Archbishop Ireland, and continuing ; "I 
told him that of course I could not interfere in such a mat- 
ter as it was none of my business who was made Cardinal : 
that personally I had a very strong friendship and admira- 
tion for the Archbishop and that individually it would 
please me greatly to see him made Cardinal, just as it 
pleased me when Dr. Satterlee was made Bishop of Wash- 
ington, but that I could no more interfere in one case than in 
the other, in short that my feeling for the Archbishop was 
due to my respect for him as a useful and honorable man, 
just such a feeling I had had for Phillips Brooks and for 
many other clergymen, of various denominations ; but that 
I could not as President in any way try to help any clergy- 
man, of any denomination, to high rank in that denomina- 
tion." On December 27th, 1903 I again wrote to Bellamy 
enclosing an article which showed he had been talking 
about my interest in Archbishop Ireland ; and stating that 
such conduct on his part was mischievous, and I continued 
as follows : " I have the heartiest admiration for Arch- 
bishop Ireland. I should be delighted to see him made 
Cardinal just as I was delighted to see Lawrence made the 
Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts — just as I have been 
delighted at various Methodist friends of mine who have 
been made Bishops, but as President it is none of my busi- 
ness to interfere for or against the advancement of any 

60 



man in the Church, and as it is impossible for me to dif- 
ferentiate what I say in my individual capacity from what 
I say as President — at least in the popular mind, and 
apparently also in the Roman mind, I must request you 
not to quote me in any way or shape hereafter." 

On December 30th by which time I had found out that 
Bellamy had written what I considered an entirely improper 
letter to Senator Hanna about the dismissal of Hurst, I 
again wrote him, and this time included the following para- 
graphs : " I know, my dear Bellamy, that you have not in- 
tended to do anything disloyal or improper but surely on 
thinking over the matter you will see that there would be 
but one possible construction to be put upon such a letter 
from you. Think of the effect if your letter were made pub- 
lic." "Let me repeat to you that, in reference to matters 
affecting the Catholic Church, events have conclusively 
shown that while you are Ambassador you must keep 
absolutely clear of any deed or word in Rome or else- 
where, which would seem to differentiate your position from 
that of other ambassadors. The mere fact of the report 
in the newspapers about your calling at the Vatican has 
had a very unfortunate effect. 

"I dare say you did not call. You may merely have 
seen some Cardinal privately, but the unpleasant talk over 
the affair emphasizes the need of extreme circumspection 
while you are in your present position. While I am Presi- 
dent and you are Ambassador neither of us in his public 
relations is to act as Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile ; 
and we have to be careful, not merely to do what is right, 
but so to carry ourselves as to show that we are doing what 
is right. I shall ask you not to quote me to any person in 
any shape or way in connection with any a:ffair of the 
Catholic Church and yourself not to take action of any 
kind which will give ground for the belief that you as an 
American Ambassador are striving to interfere in the 
affairs of the Church." 

Surely these letters of mine should have been enough 
warning to both Bellamy and 3'^ou. Apparently, you have 
quoted isolated sentences from my letters, to convince 

61 



some people that I am doing just exactly what I have again 
and again in writing stated explicitly that I would not and 
could not do. 

This being so, I must ask you to return to me all of 
my letters in which I have spoken on any of these ecclesi- 
astical subjects. If I were in a private position, I should 
not have the least objection to your keeping them. But as 
I have apparently been totally unable, even by the lan- 
guage I have quoted above as used in my letters to Bellamy 
two years ago, to make you understand my position as 
President in these matters I feel that my letters should be 
returned to me. 

Again sincerely yours, 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 



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